The Munro Review of Child Protection

The final report from the Munro Review of Child Protection was presented to ministers earlier this week (10 May). It includes a range of recommendations that are likely to have significant implications for the way that child protection services are run at a local level. This briefing unpicks the key messages from the review and the implications for local authorities in London.

Overview

In June 2010, the government announced a national review of child protection, to be led by Eileen Munro, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and a prominent academic in the field of safeguarding and child protection.

This review was launched as a fundamental examination of the whole system, assessing the impact of previous reforms implemented following high profile cases like those of Victoria Climbie and Baby Peter. These tragic cases held a particular resonance for London, both taking place in Haringey, and the subsequent reviews led by Lord Laming introduced widespread changes to the operation of child protection services in the capital.

Though recognised as well-intentioned, the newly elected government felt that these reforms had inadvertently created an overly bureaucratic system that prevented social workers from doing their job effectively, and asked Professor Munro to identify and develop priority areas for improvement in practice. Following interim reports in September and January, the final report and recommendations have now been published, with strong implications for all agencies working to safeguard children.

The review is especially clear that the child protection system must be fully focussed on the needs of individual children and young people, rather than centrally imposed processes and targets. With this in mind, four of Professor Munro’s main recommendations to reform the child protection system are:

• A reduction in the level of government prescription, including the removal of some statutory timescales, with formal child protection procedures to be cut back and greater emphasis placed on local discretion and professional judgement.

• A new duty on local authorities and partner agencies to secure sufficient provision of local “early help” services for children, young people and families, and to produce a strategy outlining how they plan to do so.

• Replacing Ofsted’s current programme of announced inspections with a more intensive process of unannounced inspections that examines the effectiveness of all agencies working within local safeguarding partnerships. • A new approach to Serious Case Reviews (SCRs), placing a stronger focus on understanding the underlying issues that made professionals behave the way they did and what prevented them from being able to properly help and protect children.

Analysis

Local practice and reducing prescription Among a number of practice-based recommendations, the review urges a revision of the government’s current main guidance in this field, Working Together to Safeguard Children, to mark a clear distinction between statutory regulations and non-statutory practice guidance. While the principles behind this recommendation are sound, particularly that of allowing greater use of professional judgement and local discretion, it is clear that the government must exercise extreme caution when considering which aspects of bureaucracy really do add little value, and which help professionals do their job and keep children safe.

The review also proposes a revision of the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families, to remove any central prescription around the format or timescales for completing risk assessments, including removing the distinction between initial and core assessments, an approach that is currently being piloted in four local authorities (including Hackney and Westminster).

The report recommends a number of changes to strengthen the voice of local frontline practitioners, notably suggesting that local authorities be required to designate a principal child and family social worker – a senior manager with lead responsibility for practice, who must remain involved in frontline child protection practice. This will be mirrored nationally with the creation of a chief social worker within government. The review also suggests that local authorities and their partners should continually review the delivery of child and family social work, based on the latest evidence of effectiveness.

Senior leadership Munro also places a strong emphasis on the role of senior leaders in ensuring effective safeguarding practice locally, recommending that the local safeguarding children board (LSCB) submit its annual report to the local authority leader and chief executive. Subject to the passage of relevant legislation, this annual report will also be presented to the local police and crime commissioner and the chair of the health and well-being board. This focus on the vital role of senior leaders is welcome, and could be reflected in a more thorough examination of their oversight of local safeguarding structures through the evolving inspection process, which is outlined in more detail below.

Early help The review’s emphasis on early help initiatives is important. Work is already underway in London to scope the potential for a range of information-sharing models similar to the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) recently rolled out in Devon, which is crucial to ensuring effective early action to safeguard children and young people. The London Safeguarding Children Board is particularly supportive of the emphasis on early help as a joint approach between the local authority and statutory and voluntary sector partners which, taken alongside the government’s existing pledge to increase numbers of health visitors, should be influential in embedding a strong commitment to early intervention and long-term tracking of outcomes for children across the local safeguarding partnerships.

Serious case reviews The Munro Review recommends that LSCBs should use systems methodology in future reviews of serious cases, moving away from the specific features of an individual case to consider the deeper, underlying issues that influence multi-agency practice more generally. This is a far

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1 The London Safeguarding Children Board provides strategic advice and support to London’s 32 local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs). Its membership is made up of representatives from the London boroughs, the police, health, probation, and London’s independent, voluntary and community agencies. more collaborative approach, involving practitioners from an early stage and focussing on holistic factors rather than seeking to identify individual errors. The approach is strongly based on the system of root cause analysis that has been established in health for a number of years. The London board is currently piloting the recommended SCIE Learning Together model across several London LSCBs. Early indications from the London pilots have been positive in terms of outcomes.

The Munro Review also recognises the heightened anxiety among professionals following the decision to publish serious case reviews in full, particularly focussed around the protection of sensitive information about individual children and families, and suggests that a stronger focus on practice issues through the systems approach should help alleviate some of these concerns.

**Ofsted and inspections**

The review finds that announced inspections are costly and create undue anxiety among professionals, recommending instead that Ofsted focuses on a detailed programme of unannounced inspections (Ofsted’s evaluation of serious case reviews will also come to an end). The strong emphasis on a multi-agency focus to these inspections is particularly helpful, taking account of the full range of agencies working within local safeguarding partnerships and focussing attention on their contribution to the delivery of strong outcomes for children, young people and families.

The report also highlights the benefits of more informal quality assurance approaches such as case audits and peer reviews. These would ideally be conducted jointly, with local authority peer reviewers joining inspection teams in a similar model to that successfully employed by NHS London’s Safeguarding Improvement Team visits over the past year.

**Health and education**

The report touches on the ongoing reforms to the health service, and raises concerns that safeguarding and child protection could become sidelined in the new arrangements. In particular, the crucial importance of named and designated professionals is highlighted, and the report notes that some areas are already seeing the erosion of previously well-established local relationships as organisations are restructured or replaced.

The London Board supports the recommendation for greater research into the possible impact of the reforms, but a number of issues are already apparent in London. While the direction of greater accountability, transparency, increased focus on choice, patient experience and the development of outcome measures are welcome, the significant organisational change taking place across London currently carries significant risk to arrangements for safeguarding children locally. Changes in key personnel, potential loss of expertise and capacity can all disrupt local partnership working arrangements, causing risks to safe information-sharing and service delivery between key partners. It is important that organisations continue to give clear local strategic leadership to the safeguarding of children, maintain strong local partnerships and ensure operational delivery is sustained.

It is also disappointing to see that the review gives little focus to the large scale reforms currently taking place across the education system, simply highlighting the existing safeguarding duties on local authority maintained schools (section 175 of the Education Act 2002) and independent schools (section 157 of the same Act). However, the review does not consider the implications of free schools or increasing conversion of local authority maintained schools to academy status, which could place pressure on these arrangements.

**Financial pressures**

As all boroughs consider service redesign in response to financial pressures, the review moves away from its otherwise strong advocacy for local discretion and takes an assertive stance on the role of directors of children’s services and lead members for children’s services, stating that these should not be diluted with additional responsibilities “unless exceptional circumstances arise”. The review is clear that all agencies must continue to prioritise child protection as budgets tighten and services reorganise, highlighting the key role of LSCBs in holding partners to account.

London boroughs have historically had a high level of need placed upon them for safeguarding services. Last year, across the UK, there were 382,300 children in need registered with local authorities. Of these, 70,012 were in London. There were more than 102,000 referrals to children’s social care services in London, to the year ending 3 March 2010, and over the same period, there were 6,280 children in London who were the subject of a child protection plan.²

Commentary

The central principle of the review is a reshaping of the child protection system around the needs of individual children and young people, and this has been broadly welcomed by experts in the field. Professor Munro feels that local authorities and their partners have become too focussed on government targets and processes to the detriment of considering whether they are actually improving outcomes for children and families. Through the London Board’s team of regional safeguarding advisers, work to develop local, child and outcome focussed quality assurance frameworks is already underway in the capital, and the report’s support for these principles is welcome.

The review’s close ties to the ongoing Social Work Taskforce will be crucial to ensure that the children’s workforce are equipped with the skills required to take on the level of responsibility suggested. However, strong levels of safeguarding expertise will be required across the full range of agencies working with children and young people – this is particularly relevant within the voluntary sector, which will be increasingly called upon to deliver services on behalf of statutory partners, but receives little attention in the review.

The role of senior leaders is highlighted strongly in the report, and elected members will be particularly crucial in driving improvement within local authorities. The London Board is planning a series of events to support London’s leaders and lead members for children’s services in this task, including a seminar looking in depth at the implications of the Munro Review on 15 June. This session will build on the outline presented here and provide a forum for members to discuss local developments and share their own views on ways forward for London.

The government has not yet responded formally to the Munro Review, although a number of senior national figures have urged that the report’s recommendations be accepted in full. Several of the reforms, however, will require significant investment to implement effectively at a time when local authorities and their partners are having to make efficiency savings. The success of the review will depend on local safeguarding partnerships implementing these reforms in full, and the government’s response will be a key factor in determining their ability to do so.

² All London figures exclude Hackney and Havering The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report The London Safeguarding Children Board Read more and book onto the safeguarding event on 15 June

This member briefing has been circulated to: Portfolio holders and those members who requested policy briefings in the following categories: Children and young people

Author: Ian Dean, London Safeguarding Children Board manager (T: 020 7934 9714) Click here to send a comment or query to the author